- What agrobiodiversity lurks in ancient Egyptian perfume? We’ll soon know.
- Problems for aquaculture from Ireland to Vietnam. All the world’s a village.
- The whys and wherefores of camel milk.
The White House gets a food garden
There’s hunger in the US, but the Obamas at least will be ok.
Featured: Past collecting in Bhutan
Eliseu wants to know more about past collecting in Bhutan:
I would be very interested to follow up the development of this case should someone have access to the mission reports and could shed some light on the main objectives, sampling strategies and findings of the collecting missions that took place in the country 30 years ago.
Rock salt and pond scum
A fascinating post over at Rancho Gordo discusses tequesquite. That’s a natural salt that has been used in Mexican cooking since pre-Columbian times, including for nixtamalization, a process that makes maize easier to process, tastier and more nutritious.
The post also mentions the alga known as tecuilayl (Spirulina geitleri). This was apparently an important food for the Aztecs. 1 Our resident expert on Mexico says it’s the perfect complement to a succulent steamed axolotl in chile sauce. Yummie.
Nibbles: Community forestry, Fresh water, Salinity, Seed systems, Acacia, Iron, Cambodia
- Community forestry not making enough money in Namibia. Yeah, but who is?
- Southern African freshwater bodies in trouble. Gotta be some worried rice wild relatives out there.
- Salinity increasing in Bangladesh. That can’t be good.
- Let the people have seeds of local varieties!
- Australian takes acacias to Niger, coals to Newcastle.
- Breeding rice for tolerance to high Fe in West Africa.
- “One of the most abundant sources of fish in Asia, the lake feeds a hungry nation.”